Catherine Steel

I am a historian of Rome, and I’m particularly interested in political history and the relationship between individual and collective action and the institutional structures which frame and underpin those actions.

I started my research career working on the orator and politician Cicero and I continue to research and publish on his writings, particularly his speeches. More recently I have been working on the other orators of the Roman Republic – a huge number of speakers, who either did not write down their speeches or whose speeches did not survive beyond the end of classical antiquity. I’ve held a European Research Council starting grant to edit the testimonia and fragments for orators other than Cicero: this project, The Fragments of Republican Roman Orators is producing an edition of the material (forthcoming, Oxford University Press) as well as a range of contextual material.

I also have an ongoing interest in the Roman Senate in the Republican period. I held a British Academy mid-career fellowship in 2011-2012 to look at its institutional history and its importance as a model of republican government for subsequent polities, and I am currently working on a monograph on the Republican Roman Senate.

I have taught and researched at the University of Glasgow since 1999. Before that I read Classics at Oxford, getting my BA in 1995 and my PhD in 1999.